


The Nineteenth Autumn

by rivendellrose



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 17:57:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9134956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivendellrose/pseuds/rivendellrose
Summary: For hearts_blood, who asked for Delenn/Lennier (natch), post-"Sleeping in Light," with the prompt ofThe Wild Swans at Coole, by W.B. Yeats.  This was a tricky one, not least because I got a little caught up in my time-scheme issues.  And also because Susan insisted on being involved.  Borrows a little from the continuity of my earlier ficOut Here, although it should still be entirely understandable without reference to that.After John Sheridan's death, Delenn feels lost and alone even with the presence of her friends. Susan has an idea of how to help with that.Written and posted back on Livejournal in January, 2010.





	

Minbar is a small world, a cold world, a world distant from its sun. It travels slowly, winters linger, and the ice never melts from much of the ground. Glaciers build, and grow over the long years, beautiful and deadly sentinels that watch over the slow end of their world. To Delenn it seemed that everything worthwhile was slowly ending around her.

When the First One, Lorien, said that he would give John Sheridan twenty years more life, Delenn did not doubt that he meant twenty years on _Earth_ \- twenty years on the planet where her husband had been born. But that hadn’t stopped her from trying to cheat his meaning, gain a few more days, a few more hours, even more minutes with the man she loved. She pulled him away from Babylon 5 and its Earth-standard calendar, and moved their budding family as quickly as she could to Minbar. If he lived there, maybe the years would stretch longer to match. But the powers of the First One weren’t fooled by the selfish machinations of a little Minbari woman. In the seventeenth Minbari atumn after Lorien’s gift, John Sheridan died. Delenn checked the date that morning. By the Earth calendar, it had been twenty years to the day since his return from Z’ha’dum.

For the next year, she observed the mourning rituals. She lit candles and prayed, meditated, and visited all the temples in and around Tuzanor to ask that they pray for and remember the outsider who had lived among them. She wrote his name in the scrolls and gave gifts in his name, and held her son’s hand tightly as they walked home in the snow. She cried - at night and alone, because no one should see the president of the interstellar alliance weeping; and also with her friends, Stephen and Michael, who stayed as long as their duties allowed, and Susan, who ordered her things sent to Minbar and took on the mantle of the _anla’shok’na_ for Delenn, and yelled herself hoarse when a particularly pugnacious EarthForce representative called and asked when Sheridan’s body would be returned to Earth for ‘proper’ burial. And of course she cried with David, who held her and tried not to be hurt when she fell into tears just from seeing his face, so similar to his father’s, and carefully hid the shock of seeing his unflappable mother reduced to such open displays of helpless sorrow and frustration. Most importantly, she rose before dawn every day and sat out in the garden, watching the sun rise, exactly as they had done together on the last day of John’s life.

The eighteenth year, she returned to her duties with a vengeance. Some things had been left aside in her year of mourning - things passed off on aides and acolytes and minor functionaries, or quietly handled by Susan or one of her other close advisors before Delenn even knew they needed to be done. No more. The reigns of the presidency back solidly in her hands, Delenn moved the alliance with all the force and deft skill that she had learned in her long experience, and threw herself fully into her work. Sometimes her aides asked her to slow down, to leave the more painful or difficult tasks for them, but she ignored them. Susan, at least, knew her well enough not to ask - she seemed to understand that work alone would push away the suffering her friend was going through, and she stood aside, though she kept careful watch. Toward the end of the eighteenth year, in the autumn again, Susan came to Delenn in her office.

“An important matter of alliance security for your consideration, President.” She bowed - a Human bow, with hands straight at the sides; Susan said she didn’t like the need to affiliate herself with a caste by her choice of bow in the Minbari fashion - and set a single sheet of clear soft-copy on her desk.

“’Official reminder of the need for the president of the Interstellar Alliance to rest and recuperate?’ What is this, Susan?”

“Exactly what it says, sir. And as _anla’shok’na_ , you are aware it’s my duty to do whatever I feel necessary in order to protect the safety of the Alliance worlds and their representatives, particularly some strange person who goes by the title of _Entil’zha_.”

“I am sure you are making a joke, Susan...”

“No, I’m not. You and John are so much alike - he used to run himself ragged like this, too, and I had actually to relieve him of duty once to make him rest, too. You remember that, don’t you?”

Delenn thought back, and smiled sadly. “It was the day we went through the _shan’fal_.”

“Yeah, well, don’t tell me any details - I know what those words mean now, and I’d really rather not think about it - but I swear to God, Delenn, I am not above knocking you out and putting you on house arrest for your own safety if that’s what it takes to make you take a break and recover yourself. We’re not at war anymore, and there’s no excuse for this.” Susan rested her hands on her hips, stepping close and glaring into her friend’s eyes. “Go home. Sleep. Eat. Do something fun.” 

A little laugh escaped Delenn at this, though it felt more tired than genuinely amused. “And what do you recommend?”

“You’re asking me? I’m probably the only person on this planet who’s a worse workaholic than you are. I’m sure you can find something - watch crystals grow, if you have to, just _don’t do any work_.”

“And what if I would like someone to talk to?” Delenn asked quietly.

Susan’s fierce countenance softened. “Same as ever - you only had to ask. Come on. I’ll drink that grass-water you call tea, and we’ll talk as much as you want. Just not here in your office. I don’t trust you not to pick right up again as soon as I leave, if we don’t get you home.”

The rest of the day, Delenn talked with her friend. As they drank tea, they talked about preparations for the upcoming festival of winter, and about David’s progress in training among the Rangers, and about the diplomatic situations between the many planets of the Alliance. Then, as the light outside dimmed and the first stars glimmered in the darkness, Delenn lowered her voice and spoke for the first time of her own feelings.

“I am so glad to have you here, Susan, but I know that you are busy, and enjoy keeping busy. David is gone so often, and... this house feels empty without both of them. I feel more alone now than I have ever felt in my life, and it is not right for that always to fall on you. You have your own duties, your own concerns. Mayan visits, but there is much between us now that never was before, and there are others, but they know me now as an outsider, as the president of the Alliance, not as a friend. There is so much time stretching ahead of me now, and it feels so...”

“Empty?”

“Alone.” Delenn looked at her hands. “I have my work and duties, and those will always fill my days, but... I look onto my path, now, and I see only the lights of others at a distance, following their roads, and darkness on my own. There are shadows on my path, and I cannot see.”

“I know you love a good metaphor, Delenn, but let’s cut through it, if we can? You’re lonely.”

Delenn nodded. 

“You know I’ll visit as much as I can.” 

“But you cannot always be here. I know, and I am honored by your devotion to the Rangers.”

Susan nodded. “Well, they’re a hell of a lot more interesting than sitting behind a desk in Geneva, I’ll give them that. But I’ll try to be here as much as I can.” 

* * *

The eighteenth year passed slowly. As it drew on, Susan began to disappear more and more regularly, and Delenn wondered if she was getting bored, tired of Minbar and its cold, or just tired of Delenn herself and her companionship. Although her old friend was always affectionate and kind when she was present, she seemed increasingly distracted. To give them both respite, Delenn took a few weeks’ holiday at her favorite temple in the mountains, and returned feeling well-rested and resolved, this time, to confront Susan about whether or not the position was perhaps wearing on her already. 

She never had the chance to bring up the subject. Immediately upon her arrival back in Tuzanor, Delenn was confronted by a grim-faced Susan, waiting at her door with her hands tightly behind her back and her posture straight as a pike. 

“Good, you’re back. There’s someone you need to see right away.”

Susan led her to the medical facility used by the _anla’shok_ , where, after a hushed consultation with one of the physicians, she then escorted Delenn to a quiet room set off from the bustle of the exterior chambers. On the slanted bed, his head drooping slightly to the side, lay a figure she had long feared she would never see again. He lifted his head, then dropped it again and let out a long sigh. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper, but it cut to her heart. 

“Delenn. What happened, Sheridan... I’m sorry.”

A weight Delenn had carried in her heart so long that she had forgotten it was not a part of her lifted suddenly. She moved to his bedside, took his hand, and laced his fingers in hers before pressing it to her heart. “Hush, Lennier. All is forgiven.”

As he dropped back into unconsciousness, she saw a smile begin to touch his lips.

Later, when Delenn asked, Susan admitted that she had run into Lennier a few times in her journeys as captain of the Hyperion, and even later. With his usual care and attention to detail, he had always exacted from her a promise that she must never tell Delenn where he was, or what he was doing, or even bring up his name to her. “He always said that he wasn’t ready, the time wasn’t right. That he hadn’t earned your forgiveness yet.” Susan snorted. “I’m not sure what he thought he was doing, but this looks more like getting the snot beat out of him than earning forgiveness.”

“Did he tell you...?” 

Susan nodded. “Eventually. I think he expected me to kick his ass for it, too.”

“And did you?” Delenn asked. 

“You can bet I thought about it. I mean, it was John. I’d have died for him, killed for him, but...” Susan pressed her lips tightly together. “He lived, and Lennier swore to me that he’d turned back to help him, and... I don’t know. We’ve all done things we wish we could undo.” 

Delenn remembered long ago, the heavy body of her teacher in her arms, the metallic tang of his blood in the air, and a moment of anguish that had nearly cost the universe an entire species, many of them now her dearest friends. “I understand.”

* * *

Lennier stayed in the care of the physicians for nearly a week, and every day, after her meetings and other duties were complete, Delenn sat by his side. At first, she talked of quiet and calming things only - the weather, her garden, little happinesses from people she knew. It seemed right to begin slowly. But when Lennier began to sit up when she arrived and to ask her questions about the outside and what she was doing, she gave in and began to talk to him as she always had. They discussed treaties to be made, laws being challenged or put in place, the activities of the _anla’shok_ , and in all things he gave his usual quiet, considered advice. At last, on the sixth day of his stay, she found the nerve to say the words that had been lingering in the back of her mind. 

“John has died, Lennier. Two years ago by our calendar.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Delenn. I know you loved him very dearly.”

“He was... he meant so much to me. I loved him so much.” 

“I know.” Lennier closed his eyes and sighed. “I did not mean to come back like this. When I thought of it, I imagined coming back to you with... proof, somehow, that I had changed. That I am better now than I was. That what happened would never happen again, and that I had atoned. But the longer time went by, the less I felt that I could truly say that. Not that it would never happen again,” he said quickly. “Ever since the moment it happened, I have known that. But to truly atone, to be worthy to be back here--”

“And that is why what Susan has done was so needed,” Delenn interrupted gently. “In honesty, Lennier, if you had returned to me seventeen years ago and said that you had atoned, that you had forgiven yourself, I would have worried. Because I know that the mistake I made, the one that I carry as you carry this, _never_ felt like something I could truly atone for. I never doubted that I would pay for it through all of this life. And in all our life together, I never told John. That lie, that silence between us... that was part of my punishment. To look at him, and at our son, every day, and know that my anger nearly killed him, and Susan and all the others, and prevented David’s ever even being born. To know that even to the day he died, only my constant silence prevented my losing all of that...” She shook her head. “No punishment could be greater than that constant knowledge.”

Lennier nodded, and it warmed her heart to see that the gesture cost him less than it had only a day before. Soon, he would be healed. Soon, he would be ready to leave again... and, she thought, might well do so without telling her, to prevent a scene. The time was right to keep that from happening.

“What you did, Lennier, I see as my fault. I let you believe something that was a lie - that I did not need you any longer. After living these last seventeen years without you in my life, Lennier, I know that I can go no further without you, dear friend. Stay, please.” 

“I don’t know if I can--”

“Lennier. You swore to me, once, to always be by my side when I needed you. Now, I need you. Will you keep that oath?”

A warmth and brightness came into Lennier’s eyes that she had not seen in years - not since long ago, when he accompanied her on every dark path her life took her down, when he seemed to glow in the shadows that surrounded her, the light that shone on her path. 

“I will stay,” he said, and that was enough.

* * *

The nineteenth autumn came and went. Summer’s brief light left Minbar quickly, but its warmth seemed to linger for Delenn, even as the first heavy snow fell earlier than usual, blanketing Tuzanor under an unseasonable whiteness. She felt invulnerable, whole in a way she had not felt since John had died, and light as the flakes of snow on the wind

“The recommendation is to stay inside whenever possible, until the storm has passed,” Lennier told her, holding out a cup of tea as she returned inside from viewing the sunrise over an icy white landscape. “I’ve rescheduled your appointments for today,” he continued. “Governmental offices are closed today, anyway.”

“Thank you, Lennier.” Delenn cast off her heavy winter cloak and accepted the tea, wrapping her hands around the stoneware to absorb its heat. She sipped slowly, enjoying the way the liquid almost-but-not-quite burned her lips and brought a pleasant blushing feeling down her throat and chest, and then returned her attention to the man in front of her, passing the heat back to him in a kiss. “You know there are others to do that... You do not need to do the work of an aide any longer.”

“No.” He smiled he same small smile she had known, and missed, for so long. “I do not need to. But my work, and my pleasure, will always be to ease your way and make you happy.”

“Hmm. And it is your professional opinion, then, that I should leave aside my work for the day?” 

He bowed his agreement, and Delenn smiled. Another kiss, a gentle touch, a murmured word... and, by mutual decision, they returned to bed as the snow fell outside the window. Inside, they had all the warmth they could desire.

Next year, the twentieth autumn, would be different. She would never have John again, but she would no longer be alone.


End file.
